Snipped from ScienceBlogs.com.

Wow, I am deeply saddened by the continually sinking ship that is our mass media. Why am I so sad? Well, just shortly after writing my story on how media matters, I was made aware of this self-congratulatory, irrational piece of propaganda that passes as journalism only if you belong to the ideological group that is the neo-conservatory, fear mongerers. Unfortunately, this wonderful representation of de-evolution was posted at the Washington Times.

It was written by sensationalist, entertainer Amanda Carpenter. The article by Carpenter tries to damage Holdren’s reputation by using out of context, Strawman fallacies and sensationalizing facts to create a perception of possible totalitarianism by Obama’s new appointment. What a load of horseshit! Thank god there are antagonists to the limbic-driven, blow-hards, like Ms. Carpenter, that actually use their cerebral cortex. These antagonists would be the smart people.

Jessica Palmer, a biologist, professor and author of Bioephemera, a science blog, took to task to blow the blow-hard right out of the water. I recommend you read her full post as she goes to town and really parses every bit of irrationality that’s in Ms. Carpenter’s article.

Here is a small portion of the article:

The sad thing here is that Carpenter’s story, like the extremist blog post that appears to be her only source (which I’ll discuss later), doesn’t recognize the distinction between talking about something and endorsing something. That distinction is absolutely central to science: science is all about discussing, testing, and evaluating many possibilities - hypotheses - until the evidence endorses one hypothesis over the others. It’s also central to policy, in which multiple policy options are described prior to one being recommended. In fact, this distinction is central to all academic fields. Does a historian comparing the draconian regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Kim Jong Il automatically support totalitarianism? Highly unlikely - unless the historian actually says he/she advocates a dictator’s policies.

If you think that she should be fired for what she does to America’s democracy or want to give her a piece of your mind, then contact her and leave a comment.

Read Full Article Here!